Terry Johnson | David’s One Thing

Given by Terry Johnson | Senior Minister of the Independent
Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Georgia

David’s One Thing
Psalm 27

Watch on YouTube

Download our mobile app

Download our mobile app

Transcript

Let us pray. 

Our Father in heaven, we're grateful for your Word, which is given by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit and is profitable for teaching and reproof and correction and training in righteousness, that we may be adequately equipped for every good work through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

I want to thank you for the invitation again. I've been here before, but thank you again for the invitation. It's one I like to accept for a number of reasons, but I have to admit near the top is the fact that my son Sam and his family are members here, and my wife Emily's sister Claudia lives here in Charlotte and is a member of the sister church at Sovereign Grace. So, it's an excuse to come to Charlotte and to hopefully be useful in the process. I am the pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church, where I have been for just under 40 years now. The nation just celebrated its 250th anniversary, and we just celebrated our 271st anniversary as a congregation. In fact, our pastor participated – was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. So, we've been around for a long time. You're a more recent congregation, but I want to extend the invitation to all of you when you're heading down 95. We're just off of the interstate, and so come on a Sunday and visit the Independent Presbyterian Church. 

For this morning, we want to be looking at Psalm 27, and then also, you might want to place a finger at Psalm 84, and there'll be some other psalms that we'll look at as well. This 27th Psalm is not identified with any particular time or place, but it has long been appreciated for its devotional richness – for example, the first verse, “The Lord is my light of my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?” Verse 8, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’” Verse 11, "Teach me your way, O Lord. Lead me on a level path because of my enemies." Verse 13, "I believe I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord." And on and on it goes. And one of the characteristics of the psalm is that all of this devotional richness, experiential richness, is written in the context of trouble. So, verse 2, he mentions evildoers, adversaries, and foes. Verse 3, there's an army that's encamped against him, a war that is rising up against him. Verse 5, he refers to the day of trouble. Verse 6, the enemies, again, he mentions once more. Verse 11, the enemies. Verse 12, the adversaries. Verse 12 again, false witnesses. 

So it's written in the context of trouble, which I think is particularly noteworthy because of the question that he raises in verse 4, which is really what I want to focus on, where he says, “One thing I have asked of the Lord that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.” So, he's raising an issue that I think is worthwhile for every one of us to raise and that would be what is the one thing that we would seek after in life? I mean, what is our priority? What is the dominant interest? What is our controlling passion? As a youngster, I would say my dominant passion was that I would be the next Don Drysdale, pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers, or the next Sandy Koufax. That's right. I was brought up in Los Angeles, so they were my heroes. Or that I might be the next Jerry West on the Lakers. That was certainly dominant as a young man, and that really is the issue that is being raised here. What is the one thing? And we would not blame David, I don't believe, if he were to say, "Well, the one thing I want is I want victory in this battle that I'm in. I want an end of the trouble. I want the destruction of my enemies." Or maybe, even, I just want peace and quiet and stability in this phase of my life. But what David says he wants is that he might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. In other words, he wants to dwell in the presence of God. He wants to know fellowship with God. He wants to know God, and he wants even to feel something of that presence as he gazes upon what he calls the beauty or the excellence and amiable character of God. And what he's saying here is that that is incomparably superior to anything else that he might desire in life. 

This is the one thing. It excludes everything else. This is the one thing that he desires above everything else. If you drop down to verse 8, then we read there, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’” That word for “face” is also translated “presence.” In the English Standard Version of your Bible, it appears something like 42 times in the Psalms. It's the same word – face, presence – so the Psalms will speak of the light of God's face or call upon the face of God to shine upon the psalmist. In other words, it represents the joy of God's presence, the face lighting up the way ours might light up in the presence of one of our loved ones that we are greeting. Eleven times he pleads, “Hide not your face.” In other words, don't withdraw my sense of your favor and of your blessing. Biblical religion is powerfully experiential. If we were to ask the question, “What does true Christianity consist of?” my answer would be, well there's the doctrinal aspect of Christianity. There are things that you must believe if you're a Christian – things about God, things about humanity, things about Christ, things about salvation. These are things that must be believed if one is a true Christian. And then there are those things that must be practiced. There's a Christian moral code. You know, John warns us in his first epistle, the one who says he comes to know him and doesn't keep the commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. So, there is a moral code – a code of conduct, as it were, for Christians. So, Christianity is really a three-legged stool. There's the doctrine, there's the practice, but then there's also the experiential, and I think that sometimes gets short shrift. I think that sometimes we don't say quite enough about that. Those who know God, they delight in him. Psalm 34:7, “They delight in his Word.” Ten times in the 119th Psalm, we are told that. They delight in his works, Psalm 111:2. They delight in his will, Psalm 40:2. They delight in knowing God and knowing the fellowship of God, knowing the presence of God, experiencing God's nearness. The nearness of God is my good, the psalmist says in the 73rd Psalm. And the New Testament picks up the theme. 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” – in other words, in his presence. And we just finished reading from the 21st chapter of the book of Revelation. And you would say something of the culmination of that passage, 22:1-7, is that the people of God, in the presence of God, they will see his face. In other words, they will enjoy his presence. Psalm 16, “In his presence is the fullness of” what? See, this is all the language of experience. We're meant to know the truth about God, and we're meant to know the truth of the life that the people of God are meant to live, but we're also meant to know him, to know what it is to be in his presence, to seek his face. 

So, I want to make a couple of distinctions and then go on and talk about what we're talking about in more detail. So, a couple of distinctions about what the one thing that David is seeking is not. Number one, it's not the only thing about David that one could say. David is multi-talented. He has a variety of interests. He's the sweet psalmist of Israel. He's a poet and a musician. He gave us half of all the psalms – a little over half of all of them were written by David. And you remember he played music for Saul that soothed Saul's tormented soul. He was a great warrior. He was a great athlete. Psalm 18:29, “By my God, I can leap over a wall.” Presumably, that takes, you know, some athletic ability. And in the encounter with Goliath – by the way, one of my roommate in college's favorite verse in the whole Bible is when David goes to the battlefield and inquires as to what's going on. He gets rebuked by his brothers and so forth and so on. A typical aspiring but very, very talented, gifted younger brother – youngest brother. Seven older brothers. He asks the question, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” My roommate, who was a quarterback on the USC football team, absolutely loved that verse. The brazen, brash, confident, devout David. All those talents and yet the full, rich devotion with God. But the point I really want to make is that it's not the only thing about David is that he seeks after God. There was much else going on in his life. And I think that true for us as well. We're not saying this is the only thing. We're not saying he was locked up in a monastery, and all they did was read the Bible and pray all day long. No, he had a rich life that was full of various activities. The God of redemption is the God of creation and the God of providence. And so, he's made us in a certain way, and he's guided our development and guided our growth, developing those gifts that he's given to us, and he expects those gifts to be used, and that will lead us into different callings. So, the point is it's not the only thing about David. Apparently, he had tremendous personal charm as well, in addition to all these talents, so much so that Saul's daughter, the king's daughter Michal fell in love with him, pursued him, wanted to marry him, was successful in the end. She did. So, David was a very, very gifted individual, and this one thing was not the only thing about him. He wasn't narrow in the breadth of his interests and desires. So don't misunderstand. In other words, that's not what we're saying is that that's all that David did. No, David – the one thing was that he would know the presence of God, but his life was rich in variety as well. That was his bottom line is what we might say. 

Secondly, we would want to note as well that it was not his consistent focus. There's a lot of failure in David's life. While he is still being pursued by Saul, he's very dishonest in the presence of the high priest, Ahimelech. He procures the holy bread through deception. Doeg hears what takes place and reports it to Saul, and the result is the 85 priests of Nob are killed. They're slaughtered. 1 Samuel 25, David completely blows his stack and is going to go murder Nabal, and it's only the Lord and Abigail who restrain him. And then of course 2 Samuel 11, David's sin with Bathsheba. So, when we say this is the one thing about David, we're not saying that David was perfect. He was, you know, he was one of us. He's flawed. Does that mean he was useless? No. But again it brings us back to the fact that the one thing is sort of David's bottom line, controlling passion, his deepest interests. He says in Psalm 57:5, "Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth." That's David's vision. That's his passion. That's what he wants above all else. Whatever else in life takes place, let your glory be all over the earth. Let your glory be recognized. He wants God to be exalted. This is why 1 Samuel 13:24, David is referred to as a man after God's own heart. 

Alright, so, if those are the things that the one thing isn't – it's not the only thing, and it's not the consistent focus for David, we have to admit that – what is the one thing? The one thing is a living, experiential, relational, compelling, enduring encounter with the true and the living God. So, we can describe this in a couple of ways to try to highlight what we're seeing here. This one thing is that which overcomes and overpowers the worldly alternatives. When I was in college at the University of Southern California, having been brought up in a Christian home all of my life, been in church every Sunday, there was something of a breakthrough that took place in my sophomore year where I reached this point. It was almost like waking up one day when I came to realize that ultimately the one thing that was important to me was that I would please God, that I would serve him, that I would obey him, that I would honor him. Bottom line was that's all, ultimately, I really want to do. There's a lot of other things – living on fraternity/sorority row, lots of distractions, difficult to figure out life and where one is headed – but that was sort of bottom line for me. I think it's an important development in the life of the Christian. I think that that's where we all need to come, to that place where we realize that ultimately what is the one thing that I want? The one thing is that I might know God, that I might dwell in his house. 

A word about this word “house.” Dwell in the house of the Lord. It's interesting in the Psalms, typically the temple is not called the temple. It's called a dwelling place or a house. And there's almost – well not almost no, but there are very few references to the sacrifices. I mean, the major activity of the temple is the priesthood and the sacrifices. They're hardly ever mentioned. Instead, what we see is the vocabulary of presence. This is God's house. In other words, this is where he lives. This is God's dwelling place. This is where we find him. This is God's tabernacle, his tent in which he lives, because the emphasis is on the relational aspect – knowing God, experiencing his presence. I said that we would look at Psalm 84, if you want to turn there. David the psalmist says, "How lovely is your” what? “Your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes it faints for the courts” (another word for the temple). “My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.” Do you see the desire, the aspiration? It's a controlling passion, longing, fainting, perceiving the loveliness, the beauty of the place. And it's beautiful because why? Because that's where God is to be found. That's where he dwells. So, the background – to just touch on this for a moment – is when the tabernacle is finally completed and the sacrifices are offered, we're told the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. That was the point. The point was not the sacrifices. The point with the sacrifices was the means to the end of God dwelling with his people. Same thing with the temple in 1 Kings 8. The temple is completed. The sacrifices are offered. What are we told next? The glory of the Lord filled the temple. See, the sacrifices were a means to an end. All the altars and the priests and the offerings and the sacrifices, they are a means to an end. What's the end? Fellowship with God. It's to know God. It's to know his presence, to see his face. 

This is what is characteristic of biblical religion going on in Psalm 84. “For a day in your courts” – so let me just stop there. So, we've already looked at one thing I have desired. I've asked the question, so what is the one thing that you desire, that you are after? Well, if you have one day to do a thing, what is the one thing that you want to do on that one day? David says, Psalm 84, “A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” He's saying there, look, one day in God's courts where his glory dwells, that's a thousand times better than anything else to be found anywhere else. That's the nature of biblical religion. This is what it means to know God. This is what it means to experience his presence. It means that everything else pales in comparison with this. This is a thousand times better than everything the world could possibly offer to a person. Just a day in his courts – a thousand times better. He goes on, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell” – there's that dwell word again – “than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” I'd rather be a doorkeeper. In other words, I'd rather be on the fringes of the temple and the presence of God. I'd rather just be sort of on the porch. I'd rather sort of be in the suburbs, not actually in the temple, just a doorkeeper, just there on the parameters of where all the action is. I'd rather that than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 

In recent weeks, I've read one of those Christian ladies books, and it's entitled I Just Want a Bigger Kitchen. And then she goes on and goes through basically every aspect of her life. She just wants a better husband and better children and a better figure and more money and on and on it goes into all the various sectors of life. What she just wants, and she's being very critical of herself – I want to make sure you understand what I'm saying – but all of it has to do with comparisons. She's constantly comparing herself. Maybe that's not a problem for you. It was a problem for her. She's constantly comparing herself with other people, how much money they have, what they're wearing, what they're driving, where they live, comparing herself unfavorably, and therefore generating discontent because she doesn't have the things that others have. Constantly undermining her peace, constantly robbing her of her joy. And of course, social media just compounds the whole problem, because what everyone else has is so accessible, and they tend to parade these things. They broadcast them. They put them out there where you can see. Oh, they're just having a wonderful life. All is good for them. Look at the smiles. Look at all the gadgets and the toys and all that they have and how that compares so unfavorably with what I have. 

Well, that's where I think we need to come back to what is being said by David here. He says that, you know, just a, you know, a day in the courts of the Lord, it's a thousand times better. I think that's incomprehensible for most of our contemporaries. I think that probably most people today would say, you know, if I have this one thing or this one day, well there's a sporting event that I would want to attend. If I could be maybe at the World Cup or at the World Series or the Super Bowl or something like that. Or it would be if there's one thing I want, it would be travel. If I could just travel to some exotic place or some historic place or maybe it would be the, you know, the technological innovations that are at our fingertips these days. Those are the things I want. Or maybe it's a new automobile. Or maybe it's to be able to socialize with, you know, the in crowd, the inner circle. That's what I would – that would be the one thing. No, for David, the one thing: “I want to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of” – I don't want to ever leave, and I prefer that to the tents of wickedness. 

So, what's in the tents of wickedness? Well, beautiful furnishings, wonderful couches and chairs. Great meals are being served in the tents of the wicked. In their garages are beautiful automobiles, and all the clever people are in the tents of wickedness, and all the sensual pleasures are in the tents of the wicked, and all the fun and all the excitement, and what the psalmist is saying in Psalm 84 is essentially this: that is as nothing whatsoever. I’d just rather be a doorkeeper. I’d just rather be on the outskirts or the threshold of the temple. That's better than anything that could be offered. It's a thousand times better than anything that could be offered in the tents of the wicked. 

So, what is this one thing? Well, it's this knowledge of God, this experience of God that overpowers all the worldly alternatives. And then I want to say this as well. It's more than mere orthodoxy. It's more than having correct doctrines and right ethics. James 2:19, “You believe God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe, and they” what? “They tremble.” They're orthodox theologians, those demons. They know the truth about God. Does that mean they're saved? No. They're utterly lost. So, it's not just a matter of orthodoxy, of just having right doctrines, of having right mental notions about God and truth. Neither is the one thing orthopraxy. The apostle Paul, as far as the law was concerned, was blameless. He says in Philippians 3:6, “As to righteousness under the law: blameless.” He kept the commandments, and yet he was utterly lost and continued to be lost until, as Luke describes in Acts 9:18, that one day the scales fell from his eyes. And correct doctrines and correct moral practices do not a true Christian make, and when the scales finally fell from his eyes, then he came to see “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” That's Philippians 3:8. And then he goes on, he says, "For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them rubbish in order that I may gain Christ." That's the same outlook as Psalm 27. It's the same outlook as Psalm 84. Look, in comparison with knowing Christ, the surpassing value, the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, everything – all things that the world has to offer – they're just like a load of rubbish. It's like the trash in your kitchen trash can in comparison with which? Knowing Christ Jesus as Lord. You know, for the for the true Christian, the things of earth have grown strangely dim in the light of God's glory and grace. I love the last stanza of Newton's great hymn, “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.” Fading is the worldling's pleasures, all his boasted pomp and show. You know, we need to be honest about the fact that the worldling has his pleasures. We're not saying they're not pleasurable. We're not saying they're not desirable. Of course they are. Well, but the point that Newton is making – “fading is the worldling's pleasures, all his boasted pomp and show.” All that he enjoys in the way of the physical delights and all that he enjoys in terms of the prestige of position in the world, it's all pomp and show. “Solid joys and lasting treasures none but Zion's children know.” No, if you're a Christian, you're a new creation. The old things have passed away. All things have become new. So, you have a different outlook, a new outlook, new desires, new passions, new interests. The old things that characterize the world and all that it desires and all of its passions and all of its lusts, they've all passed away. All things have become new. 

So, the one thing is that I might dwell in the house of the Lord. Why? Because that's where he is, that I might know him and know his fellowship. You know, I think the average beer commercial or the average car commercial, it just casts – we have to admit they do cast an enticing image. So, if you partake of their product, you're going to be surrounded by wonderful gatherings, parties, and beautiful people, you know, and beautiful things. That's the vision of the good life, you might say, that the world offers to us, and there's an enticing element to that. It's seductive. But Newton's right. Those solid joys as opposed to just passing pleasures. You know, in Hebrews 11, it's acknowledged there are the passing pleasures of sin. They are pleasures, but they are passing. The solid joys and lasting treasures none but Zion's children know. So, this is why Psalm 122, the psalmist says, "I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord.” The psalmist is not being dragged to church by his spouse. He's not one of the children reluctantly being pulled into the pew by the ear. Oh, I'm glad our feet have been standing within your gates. I mean, they've just arrived and the sense of anticipation to be where? In the house of the Lord. What's so good about that? Because that's where the Lord is. That's where we will encounter his presence in a tangible and sensible way. I don't understand how people can stay away from church. I just don't even – it's just outside of my bailiwick. I don't understand it. Jesus says, "Two or more have gathered in my name. I'll be there in their midst.” We're not just meeting here as a bunch of people who have a common interest. Jesus says he is present where we gather. We enjoy his presence when we are here together and singing his praises and opening his Word. Psalm 95, “O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence.” You see again that that note. You may have missed it, may have read over it over the years. His presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise. 

So, we sing, we're joyful, we praise. Why? Because we're coming into his presence. Psalm 100, same thing: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness.” Why with gladness? Because you're coming into his presence. “Come into his presence with singing. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name.” Psalm 36:8, “Those that take refuge in the shadow of God's wings feast on the abundance of his house. You give them to drink from the river of your delights.” In the house of God and presence of God with the people of God under the Word of God, there is an abundance. It's a feast, he says. We're not drinking from a dripping faucet in a place of scarcity. No, we're drinking from more than a fire hose. There's a river of what? Of delights, when you're in the presence of God. Psalm 26:8, “O Lord, I love the habitation of your house, the place where your glory dwells.” This is all the language of experience, and we should settle for nothing less than that. Jesus says this is eternal life – and what he says is not just to take note of something that's out there – to know you. It's not something that happens in the present. To know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 

Think about Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman. What he says to her is you drink that well water, you're going to have to come back and back again. He promises her living water. He's engaging the senses. He's appealing to experience. You drink of this water, he tells her, you'll never have to drink again. Your soul will be satisfied. You will be fulfilled like nothing in this world. Not the water of this world can fulfill you. The same thing in connection with the bread of life. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst." Again, it's the language of the senses. It's the language of experience that he's appealing to. And he warns on each of these occasions – he warns us that that which the world is offering us will never satisfy us. Do not work for the food that perishes. Now, this is in the aftermath of the feeding of the 5,000, and they're back again for more. They want another free lunch. Do not work for the food that perishes. It's never going to satisfy you. You have to go back to it again and again. It perishes. “But work for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger. He who believes in me will never thirst.” I will satisfy the hunger of your soul. I will quench the thirst of your soul. Jesus is building upon the religion of the Psalms, the religion of the Bible, what God does for his people. Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you what? Rest. That's the language of experience, satisfaction, rest, peace. This is the promise of the gospel. Come to Jesus Christ, you will find fulfillment. You will find satisfaction. You will find the pleasure, satisfaction, and fulfillment that you have sought all the days of your life and never been able to find because you've been looking in all the wrong places. And there's only one place that that will be found. “In his presence,” Psalm 16:11, “is the fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures” – true pleasures, lasting pleasures – “forevermore.”

Let’s pray together.

Our Father in heaven, we pray knowing our weakness and our foolishness and our vulnerability to the enticements of the world. The world is so seductive. It never delivers, but it seduces. And we confess, O Lord, its allurements and our vulnerability to the those. And so, we pray, O Lord, that you would so work in our hearts so that we might be able to say with David that the one thing that we seek after is to dwell in your house, in your presence, all the days of our life and gaze upon your beauty. We pray, O Lord, that we would know that presence and the fullness of joy and the pleasures to be had forevermore in knowing you through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.